Americans Support Police Reform and Those Who Are Aware of Systemic Racism Support Restructuring Law Enforcement

By William Bannick

A vast majority of Americans support reforming and/or restructuring law enforcement. Question wording is crucial. Even respondents who indicate that police departments do not need to change are very likely to support specific reform policies when presented with them. And while policies that challenge the current structure of law enforcement are less popular than softer reforms, they are supported much more strongly by those who demonstrate awareness of the effects of racism in America.

Ninety-One Percent of Americans Support at Least One Policy that Reforms/Restructures Law Enforcement

YouGov fielded a national survey of 1,024 respondents from June 18 to June 27 to gauge respondents’ awareness of systemic racism and level of support for police reform/restructuring.¹ We first asked respondents to what degree they supported or opposed eleven policies. These policies were presented in succession on individual pages. We started with general strategies towards reforming and restructuring law enforcement.

• Reform: Reforming police departments within existing structures
• Defund: Defunding police departments
• Abolish: Abolishing police departments

We then asked about eight more specific policies, which appeared in a random order for each respondent.

• Choke: Banning chokeholds and strangleholds by police
• Warn: Requiring officers to warn a suspect before shooting
• Shoot: Banning shooting at moving vehicles by police
• Disarm: Disarming police officers
• School: Removing police from schools
• Prison: Abolishing jails and prisons
• Reallocate: Reallocating funds from police departments towards healthcare infrastructure and affordable housing
• Training: Requiring racial bias training for police

Lastly, respondents chose between three strategies to approach law enforcement.

Which comes closest to your view?

• Police departments don’t need to be reformed
• Police departments have a problem with race, but the problem can be fixed by reforming the existing system
• Police reform hasn’t worked. We need to defund police and reinvent our approach to public safety.

About 91 percent of respondents supported at least one of the eight specific policies — even while 22 percent indicated “police departments don’t need to be reformed.” About 75 percent of respondents who offered this response still expressed support for at least one police reform policy, and 45 percent expressed support for “reforming police departments within existing structures.”

It is encouraging that the vast majority of Americans support these policies, but the most popular policies are softer ones that attempt to make smaller improvements to law enforcement without meaningfully challenging its structure. Below is a plot of support for all 11 policies. The three more general approaches are highlighted in green while the more specific policies appear in grey.

The policies with the highest support are: “requiring officers to warn a suspect before shooting,” “requiring racial bias training for police”, and “banning choke holds and strangleholds by police.” All of these are supported by around 70–75 percent of Americans. These policies require no systematic changes to how law enforcement functions. They are geared towards restricting abuses of power, but they do not require reapportionment of funds or a reimagining of what law enforcement looks like in America. In some cases these policies can be dangerous. Police departments can use them to shift popular support without attacking the roots of their problems. Some can even be used to advocate for more funding.

Policies that represent the greatest changes to the structure of law enforcement — abolishing police departments, jails, and prisons — receive support from only around 16 to 17 percent of Americans. Policies like “reallocating funds from police departments towards healthcare infrastructure and affordable housing” and “removing police from schools” fall somewhere in the middle. These policies involve restructuring law enforcement as well but may be seen as more gradual or less comprehensive, and are more readily embraced.

Support for “defunding police departments” is around 32 percent with 14 percent strongly supporting, while “reallocating funds from police departments towards healthcare infrastructure and affordable housing” received 44 percent support with 26 percent strongly supporting. Some might disagree with the “defund the police” slogan but still support the statement that more specifically articulates its central idea. I do not suggest that the slogan should be avoided. It succinctly conveys the concept and has helped center discussion around restructuring the police. I suggest that measuring support on the slogan alone might underrepresent support for the changes it prescribes.

Those who Acknowledge Systematic Racism are More Likely to Support More Structural Changes To Law Enforcement

Later in the survey, respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the following statements²:

• White advantages: White people in the U.S. have certain advantages because of the color of their skin.
• Generational challenges: Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for African Americans to achieve economic mobility.

Thirty-three percent of respondents strongly agreed with the white advantages statement and twenty-five percent of respondents strongly agreed with the generational challenges statement. These respondents demonstrate an understanding of two simplified examples of manifestations of systemic racism in America, and they were more likely to support the policies we discussed above.

While support for some policies, particularly support for “reforming police departments within existing structures” is high among all respondents, there are quite large differences in support for policies that aim to restructure law enforcement. For example, 83 percent of respondents who strongly agreed with the generational challenges statement support “reallocating funds from police departments towards healthcare infrastructure and affordable housing.” The corresponding figure for those who strongly agree with the white advantages statement is 77 percent. Alternatively, less than 10 percent of respondents who strongly disagree with either statement support reallocating funds. Thereby, a better understanding of racial inequality might lead one to support structural changes to law enforcement.

Above are the coefficients of two logistic regression models that we ran to discern whether or not other factors could explain away correlations between strong agreement with the statements in question and support for reallocating funds away from the police. Even with political and demographic variables introduced into the models, the correlation we observed remains robust, and has a large positive magnitude.

Party identification also had a significant effect of a relatively strong magnitude in both models, but I question the causality of these relationships. Many Americans may tend to support the platform of the party they support, but “reallocating funds from police departments towards healthcare infrastructure and affordable housing” is not a platform of either party. Party affiliation may play a role in this discussion but it cannot explain away the relationship we see with strong agreement with statements on racial inequality and support for reallocation of funds away from police.

Conclusions

Wording is important. When people are asked about eight specific police reform policies, 91 percent support at least one, including around 75 percent of respondents who also claimed “police departments don’t need to be reformed.” Respondents were also more likely to express support for “reallocating funds from police departments towards healthcare infrastructure and affordable housing” than they were to support “defunding police departments.” When measuring support for policies and movements, one should be specific.

There is also a relationship between understanding manifestations of systemic racism and supporting structural changes to policing. Respondents who strongly agree with statements on the generational challenges faced by Black Americans and the advantages of white Americans are much more likely to support a more re-framing of law enforcement, and in particular reallocating funds away from the police.

Popular support itself does not make policy. Furthermore, this data does not provide any means for how respondents can become more likely to agree with statements on systemic racism. Education of white people on systemic racial inequality often falls as a burden on Black people and other people of color. This discussion certainly does not advocate for that. Perhaps the dissemination of information about the effects and manifestations of racism within communities can engender broader support for meaningfully restructuring police departments. But such a prescription is easily abused, and is not explicitly supported by the data.

More relevant, is that among those who strongly agree with a statement on generational inequalities faced by Black Americans, 83 percent support reallocating funds from the police towards healthcare infrastructure and affordable housing. Out of those who strongly agree with a statement on advantages privileged to white Americans, 77 percent support reallocating funds from the police towards healthcare infrastructure and affordable housing. Therefore, for the vast majority of those aware of manifestations of structural racism, defunding the police is a central part of the way forward.

[1] The sample was weighted to be nationally representative on age, sex, race, education, census region, voter registration, news interest, and 2016 presidential vote. Weights ranged from 0.005 to 6.021, with a mean of 1, SD of 0.90 and a MOE of +/- 4.13%.

[2] The response choices for both statements were: Strongly agree, Somewhat agree, Neither agree nor disagree, Somewhat disagree, Strongly disagree, Prefer not to say.